The Delivery Scams I See Every December

The Text That Starts It All

It's December, the doorbell hasn't rung in two days, and then a text lands: "Your parcel could not be delivered. Please rearrange delivery here." There's a link. It looks legitimate enough, styled like Royal Mail or a well known courier, and because you're actually expecting three or four parcels this time of year, your brain doesn't pause the way it might in June. That's exactly what makes this the busiest scam text of the year, and I get sent screenshots of it from people in all over the place almost every week between November and Christmas.

Why December Is Prime Time for This

Scammers don't need to guess whether you're expecting a delivery in December, because almost everyone is. The volume of real courier texts goes up at the same time, so a fake one slips in among genuine ones without standing out. This is smishing, the text message version of phishing, and it works on the same principles I've covered before. The link usually leads to a page asking for a small "redelivery fee" and your card details, or it prompts you to download something under the guise of tracking your parcel. Either way, the goal is the same: get your card number, or get access to your device. The couriers themselves change depending on where you are, it might be Royal Mail, USPS, DHL, or a local delivery firm nobody outside your own country would recognise, but the format of the scam text barely varies at all, which tells you it's a template being reused globally rather than anything targeted specifically at you.

How I Tell a Real Delivery Update From a Fake One

I never click a link in a text about a delivery, no matter how convincing it looks. If I'm expecting something, I go straight to the retailer's own order tracking page or the courier's official app, which I've downloaded directly from the app store rather than through any link. Genuine couriers in the UK don't usually ask for a card payment to redeliver a parcel that's already been paid for, so any message asking for money to "release" a delivery is a strong sign something's wrong. If I'm not expecting anything at all, the text goes straight in the bin, or gets reported. I also don't save my card details in my browser's autofill for exactly this reason, since a fake redelivery page can only take what's actually sitting there to be taken. I use NordPass to fill payment details only on sites I've actually chosen to visit myself, never on a page I landed on through a text link.

The Fake Customs and Import Fee Message

A close cousin of the delivery text is the one claiming your parcel is stuck at customs, held up by an unpaid import duty, or waiting on a small clearance fee before it can be released. These land more often around the holidays too, since genuine customs charges on international orders are common enough this time of year that the fake version doesn't stand out. The tell is usually in how it asks you to pay, a legitimate customs bill from a courier or tax authority doesn't normally get settled by tapping a link in a text message and entering your card there and then. If I'm ever unsure whether a customs charge is real, I go to the courier's official app or website directly and check my parcel's status from there, the same rule I use for any delivery text.

The Other December Scam I Watch For: Gift Cards

The second one I see a lot in December involves gift cards, not deliveries. It usually starts as a message claiming to be from a friend, a boss, or even a family member, asking you to urgently buy gift cards and send over the codes. It plays on the rush of the season, when people are already buying gift cards as presents anyway, so the request doesn't feel as odd as it should. No legitimate request, personal or professional, will ever ask you to pay in gift cards. If you get one, call the person directly on a number you already have, not one from the message, before you do anything else. The messages are usually specific about the brand too, Apple, Amazon, and Google Play gift cards come up constantly, since the codes on those are instantly usable and effectively untraceable once they've been sent. If a "boss" is asking you to buy several hundred pounds worth of gift cards over text with no prior conversation about it, that alone is worth treating as the red flag it is.

The Porch Piracy Problem, and What Actually Helps

Not every December delivery problem is a scam text, sometimes a parcel really does get taken off a doorstep before anyone notices. It's a different kind of risk, but it spikes at the same time of year for the same reason, more parcels sitting outside for longer. The fixes that actually help are fairly boring: choosing a delivery slot when you know someone will be home, adding delivery instructions that specify a less visible spot than directly in front of the door, or switching to a collection point or locker for anything you're not expecting to be home for. A cheap video doorbell has also become one of the more effective everyday deterrents I've seen, not because footage gets someone's parcel back, but because visible cameras put a lot of opportunistic thieves off before they even try.

What I Do When a Parcel Actually Goes Missing

Real missing parcels do happen, and the process for that looks nothing like the scam texts. I contact the retailer I bought from directly, since they're responsible for getting my order to me, not the courier. I check the tracking through the retailer's own account page, and if a delivery photo shows a parcel left somewhere I don't recognise, I report it to the retailer with a screenshot. For scam texts, I forward the suspicious message to 7726 for free, which flags it to my mobile provider, and if money or details have actually been taken I report it to Action Fraud. I've written before about the wider run of Christmas shopping scams and the secure payment habits that back all of this up, and together they cover most of what catches people out this time of year. If a message doesn't sit right with you, my Safety Toolkit has more on spotting these, or you can get in touch and I'll take a look with you. None of these habits take more than a few seconds once they're second nature, and that's really the whole point, the scam relies on you reacting fast, so reacting slow is usually all it takes to beat it.